


Hell is other people

by Pine



Category: Heaven's Secret (Visual Novel)
Genre: Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:33:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27146683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pine/pseuds/Pine
Summary: There, in the expanse of Heaven, she reminds him of home.
Relationships: Geralt/Main Character, Geralt/Vicky Walker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Hell is other people

He misses Hell, sometimes.

Sometimes, before he sleeps at night, he thinks of the unforgiving heat and the relentless cold, the screams of torture and pleads for mercy that echo in the background, like white noise that lulls him to sleep.

There is beauty among the caverns and imposing dark halls. He can appreciate the art of intrigue within them. But he does not enjoy the politics and the power struggles, the intoxication of his kind on social status.

Still, in its extremes, in its unpleasantness, it is still home. And he has not stayed home for any extended period of time since he started teaching. He longs for it.

\--

As time flows, as he continues his teaching high above the clouds, in the expanse of space of Angels, he finds remnants of home:

One is shouting, "Act!" in the cliffs at the newly dead like always. He never tires of seeing the poor souls run and run and run and run into the forest. They run, looking out for predators that do not exist, for dangers that never come, for that moment to wake them from the dream or nightmare that it isn't.

He indulges in the fear they feel. Most of the time, they end up with almost a second death. But other times, they pass the test and the Academy gains another Unclaimed to teach.

"Act!" He shouts again on another day, and this time she runs and runs and runs, not towards the forest to his surprise, but towards the edge and throws herself to the Abyss.

A part of him hopes she grows her wings. It's been so long since he has encountered such brave a soul as she.

And she does.

Her wings carry her back to the cliff and she sinks down to her knees, wide-eyed and bewildered. She touches and runs her fingers through the feathers, disbelieving.

He claps and smirks at her performance. She looks at him.

He sees the ice within her eyes and it shocks him.

Misselina steps forward, blissfully unaware of his urge to stare at her and she continues the introduction. Eventually, he sends her on Fyr's back to go to the Academy with Andy.

\--

And the next time he sees her again is in his class.

It takes a while for her to find her footing, but soon, she excels in it. He distinguishes her from her peers -- she is a great student and not because she has easily claimed the spot of his favorite as the whispers say.

He has no favorite.

He treats all of them equally.

_(But among the many, there is a first.)_

\--

He delights in every lesson she learns, in every skill she gains, and in every begrudging compliment Fencio pays her when the teachers talk about their students.

The students whisper her name in the hallowed halls, not because she is exceeding every unfair expectation that has been placed on her by her Seraphim mother's reputation, but because she does not mingle much with her kind, because she is favored by Dino, because she is favored by Lucifer.

And the whispers cut him -- it leaves him wounds that he refuses to acknowledge.

They are dangerous rumors that Fencio wished to investigate, Misselina tells him in confidence. The Angel worries for her, not wanting such potential wasted in such damning affairs.

But she continues to do as she pleases -- within the boundaries of the rules, with excellence and perseverance, without the ruthless ambition and cunning that her mother had as a student.

And she does not seem to mind her infamy.

He thinks she enjoys the intrigue despite her being the Angel that she claims that she wants to be after she graduates from the Academy.

It reminds him of home.

\--

The honor as the first Unclaimed in a long time to participate in the Cleansing Rain is bestowed upon her. He watches her soar to the skies on Fyr's back to perform the ceremony with Dino and Lucifer.

When she returns, she turns to him and asks him about what the ceremony is for. She asks him about its history.

She smiles at him as he answers her questions and she pouts as he dismisses her, knowing he still has work to do for that night.

But she has boundless curiosity. What time she does not spend in class, in missions, what time she does not spend with friends, in practice, she goes to him to seek more answers.

Sometimes, he sends her to Misselina, to the other teachers (but never to Fencio), or to the library in Heaven's facility.

Though nowhere near the scale and grandeur of the Great Library back in Hell, it is adequate for more immediate needs.

And one time, he accompanies her. Why he doesn't just send her on her own, he does not know.

And there, among the dusty bookshelves, in the little, almost forgotten corner on the subject of humanity and religion and faith is where she first kisses him, her soft lips barely touching his. She, standing on tiptoes so she can reach his face.

He sees her dark red wings quiver in excitement. Through her light touch of his shoulders, a quiet confession of attraction. She leans her chest against his and for once, he is not sure what to do.

He does not kiss her back. He does not move. He stands still as she tugs his lower lip with her teeth before she finally leaves space between them and he can finally breathe.

Her hands are still on his shoulders and her eyes look into his. He can see a light of admiration in them in the expanse of ice he had seen before.

She lets him gaze in her eyes. She bares her soul to him. Beyond the ice, he sees an endless roaring fire. He flinches at the intense heat and flames that lick at his soul, breaking his trance.

She reminds him of Hell.

\--

He should have rebuked her then and reported her -- he is her teacher, she is his student. He is a Demon, and she is an ~~Angel~~ Unclaimed.

But he does nothing and as the days and the nights go on, it is as if nothing had happened at all.

She seeks him out outside his class, whether to learn more and to improve on her skills, or for something else, he does not know for he avoids the pathways where the energy that she radiates lingers.

He has never thought himself a coward until now.

But her fires consume him and her ice numbs him and he can't help but memorize the patterns of her.

He avoids and he avoids and one night and he finds himself near the entrance to the Garden of Adam and Eve.

"Demon Geralt," she calls out to him.

He does not know how he did not notice her presence in the benches under the half-Angel, half-Demon statue. But he is a teacher. She is his student. She is not a threat. He will not run away.

She pats the space next to her, beckoning him to sit down.

He crosses his arms in front of his chest and sits down at the very edge of the bench.

"You didn't notice me," she says, looking pleased with herself.

A wind gently blows and suddenly he feels her energy.

"You hid yourself from me," he realizes.

"I can't do it for very long."

"But long enough." _How_ , he wants to ask. He is both proud of her and appalled at himself.

_I must be slipping._

She nods. "Long enough so you can't avoid me."

"I'm not avoiding you," he lies.

She extends a hand and reaches for his face, cups his cheek and forces him to look at her.

"I'll be good, I promise."

_Shepha, have mercy on me._

\--

He and Misselina give her lessons on how to fly, with Andy helping. She does it flawlessly, having been taught by her friends, he is sure.

He could feel a little trepidation when she jumps from the cliffs, knowing that jumping off of them is no longer a dream, but she does it anyway.

He watches the dark red wings shine against sunlight as she soars through the sky, happily playing tag with Andy in the air.

And the next day, again at the cliffs, while plotting a new exercise route for Andy, he is surprised to see her approach him with two new colors on her back.

"A classmate thought that freezing my wings off would be helpful to trigger my hidden skill," she says.

"And was it?" He asks as he eyes her new wings. It looked like her soul -- one was of ice, in shades of blue from the top to white. The other was of fire, bright red from the top to light orange.

She shakes her head. "It just helped me grow these."

She looks around for good measure before she reaches for his hand. She stretches out a wing and has him run his fingers through its soft feathers.

She steps closer to him so he can reach her better. He continues to stroke her wings. They flutter with his attention.

A few more days follow, and the next time he sees her wings again, they are bound tightly for the competition of the Unclaimed. But even then, they stand out from the grays, the whites, the blacks.

They are beautiful.

\--

He touches the inside of her wrist, where a new mark of flowering blooms had appeared after the competition. He has never seen anything like it before, but he knows it is some sort of blessing.

She doesn't tell him what it is. He doesn't ask.

"Stop distracting me," she says.

"I'm supposed to distract you," he chides her. "Now, focus. What can you feel?"

Energy manipulation -- she trains with him. Misselina may teach the Unclaimed with tapping their hidden potentials, but this...

The molding of this type of power, her power, it is his forte.

He teaches her how to learn someone -- with and without touching them.

(And she uses that learning on him.

Just as he that uses that teaching on her.)

\--

Many afternoons, sometimes even far into the night, he trains her.

He knows her energy by now, intimately, every wave, every quirk of it -- how she shapes it, how she hides it, how she can use it for or against others.

Her body is a weapon and he delights in helping her master it.

Just as she indulges herself in mastering his with every stolen touch, stroke, tease.

He shouldn't let her so close to him. He hopes he does not fully succumb to her temptation.

In an abandoned shrine many moons after, a place long forgotten by time, they do their tracing exercises. He touches her wrist again as he's facing her.

"What can you feel?"

She closes her eyes and he watches her flick her tongue out her lips.

"You've been here recently. No one else has been around for a long while."

She opens her eyes and looks at him.

He nods. "Not for many years."

"That doesn't distract me anymore." She motions to where his hand is touching her. Their eyes meet and she smirks.

A challenge.

A second after, he has her on her back, wings splayed across the stone floor. He holds her arms above her head. His knees are against her sides, pinning her in place.

"Please."

It leaves her lips as a plea and he answers it with his lips crashing on hers.

It is a prayer as his hands explore every inch of her skin until most of their clothes are thrown aside.

It is a cheer as she pulls him closer to her, as he rubs himself against her and she takes hold of his length.

His ears are filled with heavy breaths, flesh rubbing on flesh, whimpers, hungry moans.

"Please."

He pulls himself up from her and looks down. Her body is bared to him, her hands holding the back of her knees, legs spread open. He runs two fingers against the folds between her thighs -- wet, ripe and ready for him to take.

He abandons all hope as he enters her.

\--

He thinks he is holding up well despite the crushing weight of the guilt at what they did.

He continues to teach his classes, to train her in energy manipulation, and has included her in his flying exercises with Andy, to both students' excitement.

She still goes to him for questions and he still either answers her or dismisses her to go to others who can better help her.

And nothing much has changed except for when he indulges himself with the memory of her body and strokes himself to relief.

And sometimes, in the solace of his modest office, he bites back a moan. His robes are half-open. He sits at the edge of his seat, legs spread as much as his chair allows, enough for her to kneel naked between his thighs and take him.

She does so without hesitation, with a light touch, with an open mouth and a skillful tongue. She teases his guilt out of him until he reaches the peak.

He watches the evidence of his guilt dribble down the side of her mouth as she tries to swallow all of it.

She is still facing him, eyes half-lidded in pleasure as she continues to touch herself, chasing her own release.

He clutches the back of her head and pulls her hair down, forcing her open her mouth.

She takes him in again and closes her lips around it. It muffles her moan as she finally reaches her climax.

"Good girl," the praise escapes his lips.

He feels her smile against him.

\--

Of course, as with all things, something must give way.

Balance must be maintained.

_Expelled._

The word tastes so bitter in his mouth.

_Expelled because she kissed Lucifer._

He could feel Fencio's glee, a twisted sense of satisfaction under the bastard's cool façade upon announcing the news to him and Misselina.

An investigation will still be conducted the next day by a panel, where she and Lucifer will be questioned.

His jealousy flairs but that is not what matters now.

In the course of the investigation, she will be asked if she has broken The Rule, if she has felt attraction to someone other than her own kind, and they will read her mind to confirm the truthfulness of her answers.

And then, they will see, more than Lucifer (maybe more than that _fucking spawn_ ), they will see him. The teacher. The student. The stolen moments together.

He knows this. More than the kiss, it hurts more that he himself has put her in jeopardy because he can't control his attraction lust possessiveness obsession love? self.

And he can't see her now. He cannot risk making the situation worse, with a guard outside her room and Mimi possibly with her.

He locks himself in his office and looks around. In every corner of it, he sees her and the moments they have shared in it, both innocent and not.

He imagines how Misselina will take this betrayal of authority and trust once the relationship is found out; Misselina loves her like a daughter. He thinks of how Andy will train now, how the other students he's helping will cope. Will Fencio find some semblance of peace knowing that he too has succumbed to the wiles of a Walker? Will Rebecca have him killed instead?

And he wonders, briefly, if he will get to say goodbye to her before he is banished to Earth and suffer as humans do before he disappears from existence.

He wonders if he will have a chance to see ~~her~~ home ever again.

\--

The next day, Misselina is called to the panel.

He does not even get a chance to even get a glimpse of her before the investigation.

He goes to the library and feels the faintest trace of her, as in his office, his classroom, the gardens, his room.

There is nowhere on the Academy grounds that he can't feel her.

He settles for his office instead and decides to do some work instead. If that will be his last hours in the Academy, he might as well settle what he can.

He does not know how much time has passed when he hears a familiar pattern of knocking on his office door.

It opens slowly and he dares not hope, but he feels the energy before he sees its owner.

A moment after it closes, he finds himself full of her.

She is sitting on his lap, body curling tightly against him, arms around his shoulders, nose buried at the hollow of his collarbones. Her wings envelop them together, as if to hide them.

He moves his arms around her and hugs her.

"I heard about the investigation. Are you alright?"

"I didn't kiss him."

"That doesn't matter. What did the panel decide?"

"I didn't kiss him."

"It. Doesn't. Matter. That's not what's important." _As long as you're alright._

She pulls back enough so he can see her face. She touches his cheek. "It's important to me. I didn't kiss him. That selfish jerk was drunk and he kissed me."

"And Fencio and Seraph Crowley saw."

She nods. "They asked a few questions. Adimiron Winchestro, he saw my memories. He attested the truth and Lucifer... the panel agreed that his father already punished him enough. They gave me a warning. Seraph Crowley and the majority agreed that I don't need a chaperone, so..."

"So, here you are."

"So, here I am."

They drink in each other's presence, staring, still holding each other.

"You're still here." He breathes out and the tension he didn't know he had bleeds out. She relaxes as well.

"I get to stay. I'm not expelled."

He takes a deep breath and asks another question that's on his mind. He's relieved that she will be able to continue her studies, that he didn't ruin her completely, but... "Winchestro would have seen a glimpse of it, of..." He motions between the two of them. "Of us. It's not completely impossible, but he is much more powerful and practiced than you are. What did you do for him not to see?"

She gives him a sly smile and shows him her wrist, the same one with the blooming flowers that he likes to trace with his fingers, to kiss.

And the understanding clicks in place. "The Serpent?" He asks. He has only read about it once, many, many years ago. "You gained its favor."

"I spared it. Donny did kill it, but yeah, it blessed me. I am protected, somehow."

He held her close and they didn't move for a while.

He pulls her head gently to him and kisses her forehead and rests his chin on top of her head. "I'm sorry."

She pulls her head back and looks at him again. "What for?"

 _For putting you in danger._ "For wanting you."

She stares into his eyes and he doesn't resist. He lets her explore the landscape of his thoughts. For once, he bares it all to her, just as she has many times, even after the blessed mark on her wrist. She has let him in; trusts him completely not to harm her. What they have is a risk, one that has almost cost her everything and yet-

The demon that he is... He has corrupted her completely.

It feels like eternity. He feels when she pulls out of his mind and he sits still, waiting for her to move.

"Adimiron, he- we talked. He and my mother... did you know? They love each other. Loved. Love."

He stays silent.

She strokes his cheek with a finger and says in a quiet voice, "I've always wanted to be an Angel." She looks at him, almost an apology in her expression, "But I don't want to be like my mother."

\--

Many more full moons pass.

With every touch, every stolen moment, he places the thought of almost losing her near the front of his mind.

Every single time he places a kiss on her skin is a risk.

Every lick, every taste... he doesn't stop worshiping every inch of her while he still can.

Every private smile she gives him. Every memory they make together.

He savors it all.

There's very little left needed to be taught to her. Soon, she will graduate from the Academy and she will have to choose which side of creation to serve. And it is unlikely they will see each other again.

All good things come to an end.

\--

There is barely a ceremony when the Unclaimed finally choose. It's a very simple affair despite the profound effect of the decision to be made.

They stand on a cliff similar to where they first met, together with Misselina. Fencio has decided, for some reason, to leave it to Misselina and him to perform the rites.

She stands before them, wearing a long grey robe, as is custom. Her wings are still the same ice and fire, but with much deeper, richer color. They have an intimidating presence now, as opposed to just the startling beauty they have.

He will miss running his fingers through their feathers.

He closes his eyes and calms himself. He forces himself to concentrate on her as his student. When he opens them, he sees her smiling at him, and he smiles back. He is proud of her and all that she has accomplished. She has been one of the best students that passed through the Academy's halls.

He says his part of the ceremony automatically. He lips move to say the words while his eyes drink her in, committing her image to memory. He barely registers anything else -- Misselina's long spiel on the balance of Heaven and Hell, on honor, on the once violent past, on tradition, until-

"Demon."

He stops breathing for a moment.

She smiles at him, as if she didn't say anything remotely that has shifted the truth that he has believed in for so long. She has always wanted to be...

"Geralt," Misselina gently nudges him.

He doesn't say the words dictated by tradition. At least, not yet. "Are you sure?"

She doesn't answer him. She doesn't nod. Instead, she steps closer, reaches out to him and removes the strap of studded leather from his neck and wears it around hers. She fastens it with practiced fingers, fits it tight enough.

It is a scandalous act of confession. He looks at the Angel beside him from the corner of his eye. Misselina doesn't even blink.

He's half a mind to laugh hysterically at what is happening, to let out all the worries and sheer stress and pain that has built up in him, having come to terms that he will lose her, but that would be telling that he has finally, _finally lost his mind._

"Demon," she repeats.

He nods and continues the ceremony, trying to keep his voice even. "And so you have chosen, you who will succumb to darkness. To be bound to the fires of Hell, forever burning."

"To further the fires of Hell, forever burning."

Misselina nods and steps closer to envelop her in a hug. "I wish you nothing but happiness, my child."

They hug with smiles on their faces.

"And you!" The Angel turns to him. She narrows her eyes, takes a deep breath, as if to scold him, but just sighs. "I will go ahead. You will conclude the ceremony. Then we will meet in the outskirts and we will drink a bottle of glift! Or two." She raises her arms in surrender. "Or three!"

And before he can respond, Misselina flies away.

They're silent for a moment, until she cracks and laughs loudly, tears forming around her eyes from joy. He still tries to hold himself together but he can't help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

"You heard the Angel." He chides her. "We're not yet done."

Her laughs slow until she pulls herself together and quiets down. she grins at him, reflecting his own. She smooths down her robes as she steps to the very edge of the cliff and stretches out her wings.

"Act!" He shouts.

And she jumps off. As she falls, her body and wings burns, from orange to bright blue, like the expanse of ice and fire in her soul.

**Like home.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to redlightsdistrict and Alaska Thunderfun for reading this fic over!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this. It's been a long, long while since I've written something, so constructive criticism and other reactions are much welcome. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! :)


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